WAX206 as MoCA Access Points

[The Shanester]

I have an Xfinity XB7 gateway with wireless turned off, so it functions as my router. The 2.5GbE port goes to a TP-Link unmanaged switch with 2.5GbE ports. I have ActionTec ECB7250’s at three points in my home including coming out of the initial switch, and I have another in my office with the same TP-Link switch. There is another downstairs, but no device down there has more than gigabit ports, so I don’t have a faster-than-gigabit switch at that location. I have been looking for a wireless setup to best take advantage of my 1200Mbps plan; I pull around 1400Mbps wired in my office, so I know the speed is there. My latest effort has been to purchase three WAX206 units to put one at each MoCA unit. Two of the WAX206 units come out of the TP-Link switches into the WAN port; the downstairs one takes the MoCA output directly to the WAN and I use the WAX206 as the switch. Each of the WAX206 units is set up exactly the same with a network for our wireless devices, one for our smart home gear, and one for guests. I haven’t found anything to say if it’s good or not to use the same SSID for the three networks on each of the three WAX206 units. I only have 2.4GHz on for the smart home network; any devices joining the regular or guest networks will be newer and capable of 5GHz and WPA3. Originally I was getting about 800Mbps six feet from the first WAX206. That’s not really any better than anything else I’ve tried. Sometimes I get under 100Mbps; I assume when that happens the device is attached to a farther WAX206 unit.

Have I set this up the best way to get the best speeds? Would I be better off going back to a mesh system? I got a great deal on these WAX206 units, but I don’t know how to make them hand off or why I can’t get wireless speeds over gigabit. Thanks for any helpful advice.